What fight marked the end of Femis prime ? For me it's Dubois, aj was physically near his best, speed and stamina wise, and claimed to be hitting harder than ever before, he even brutalized Wallin and Ngannou who gave Fury problems to prove it. Both Usyk and Ruiz fought a prime joshua imo, but after that Dubois beating he'll never be the same.......
Never had a prime Coddled and gifted everything his entire career. A bodybuilding bum. If he ever got pipped against Chisora who is our HW gatekeeper of real fighters he would have been chinned over within a round or two. His "best" win is out of retirement OAP Wlad who he almost got chinned over by then Wlad who is a big overrated dosser himself failed to finish the job because he would always falter against someone that size with fight in them.
Stole a gold medal of Erislandy Savon to start in a corrupt Olympic games. Secondly took me and my friends hostage in our university dorm and threatened to beat us up and break our jaws because we said Fury would beat him. I wet myself & cried.
The second Usyk fight. That post fight meltdown said it all. Whatever confidence Joshua once had that he was the best in the world or had a chance at being the best in the world was gone. He hasn’t looked like a confident fighter since that loss.
If I had to earmark his best fight it would be Usyk II (even though it came in a loss); in retrospect it was a stupid decision dumping Robert Garcia after that fight, yes he lost but it was simply a case of coming up short against a better man, after subsequently going under Derrick James and Ben Davison he has looked much worse.
His mental prime ended after Ruiz 1. His whole career would have looked so different had he won that fight in his American debut.
Has to be Ruiz, that was when AJ was fully confident and never shaken much up. Heading into the Usyk fights, he had become more fragile and started losing confidence in his abilities as he desperately started running through a bunch of different trainers to end up never establishing an identity for himself. So no, Usyk did not fight a prime AJ just like he did not fight a prime Fury after Ngannou softened him up.
He has the fire back. So that complicates things. But going by age it's probably after the Usyk fights. You could even argue he was already past prime, though Usyk was older so in that matchup it isn't an excuse. Also his prime as a man is just beginning. We can expect books, rap songs, speech tours, political campaigns, bidness, honorary degrees at Oxford, a statue.